Update:
Scroll to the bottom for the “official teaser trailer” of The Interview.
North Korea is threatening a “resolute and merciless” response against the United States, labeling it “reckless US provocative insanity” and saying it will consider it an “act of war.”
Moreover, a statement attributed by North Korea’s official news agency KCNA to an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman calls it “a most wanton act of terror and act of war, and is absolutely intolerable.”
But what is “it”?
Has the United States sent its Special Forces or drones into or over the territory of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? Or, worse, has the United States prohibited Dennis Rodman from celebrating any more of Kim Jong-Un’s birthdays in North Korea?
No, “it” is much worse than that.
“It” is The Interview, a comedy directed by Evan Goldberg, in which Seth Rogen and James Franco play celebrity TV journalists who secure an exclusive interview with Kim, but are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. The film is slated for release in the US on October 14
After first “rubbishing” the comedy a week ago, North Korea is now pulling out its big guns.
It appears that the film’s plot has touched a nerve inside the regime, which takes a dim view of satirical treatment of its leaders and is notoriously paranoid about perceived threats to their safety.
[..]
The foreign ministry official, in typically bombastic style, berated the film’s makers as gangsters and described the film’s release as “reckless US provocative insanity.”
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The film had sparked “a gust of hatred and rage” among the North Korean citizens and soldiers, the official said, although ordinary North Koreans are probably unaware of its existence and, with very few exceptions, will never get to see it.[..]
Kim, played by the Korean American actor Randall Park, is portrayed as an overweight cigar smoker, although the 31-year-old leader is thought to prefer cigarettes. It is not clear if Kim, who was partly educated in the west, where he developed a love of NBA basketball, has seen the trailer.
.His father, Kim Jong-il, was a well-known movie buff who ordered the abduction of the South Korean director Shin Sang-ok in 1987. Shin was forced to make propaganda movies for the regime until his escape.
“We’re not making this up.”
Below is the “official teaser trailer” for The Interview — nothing to rave about, but also nothing to go to war about.
Lead image: Astrelok / Shutterstock.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.